Hundreds of fossils found in China suggest some unhatched dinos kicked their legs

By Erin Wayman, 12:30 PM April 10, 2013

Dinosaur embryos lived fast and hatched young.

The oldest dino embryos ever discovered — hundreds of miniature bones dating to nearly 200 million years ago — show that some dinosaurs grew rapidly inside their eggs and probably had brief incubation periods, researchers report in the April 11 Nature. The work marks the first time scientists have tracked the development of dinosaur embryos.

“It’s so rare to have a window into the earliest times of dinosaurs’ lives,” says Kristi Curry Rogers, ...